On Thursday 1st December, the heart of Dorking hosted an open-house style Christmas market. West Street, South Street and the High Street closed their roads and opened up late to the public.
Local businesses were invited to open later, or host a stall outside their premises and take part in a festive evening of late-night shopping, food and drink, live music and family fun entertainment.
You can find Ralph James Estate Agents in Dorking at 44 West Street – and if you did, you’ll have seen what we’ve been up to.
And if you didn’t? We never could resist documenting a great event to promote our towns.
As we work so closely with Stripey Stork, we took the opportunity to join in the fun and fundraise simultaneously. We had a great time offering festive fun, with a lucky dip front door created by our own Nicky, and a guess the price, hosted by our Office Manager Chloe, alongside home-baked Christmas cake products and mulled wine.
And how popular the mulled wine happened to be!
With many passers-by commenting on the high cost of some of the stalls and lack of activities for young children, we were pleased to attract donations by offering everything for just £1.
I loved talking to the local people of Dorking, telling them about Stripey Stork – even though it was freezing, the turnout was amazing! So many people.
Macy, Junior Content Creator
Ralph James are proud to announce that with your participation and donations, together we raised over £150 for Stripey Stork!
All ready to go.
From 6pm, the roads closed and the festive fun began.
Coming together as a community felt amazing, especially where our office only opened this year, it was a great opportunity to meet and talk to lots of different people. It also felt great coming together as a team to try and help raise as much money as possible for Stripey Stork!
Katie, Property Manager
Guess the price of the house.
Ralph James are all about promoting the amazing local business in our towns, and what better way than collating a sample of from each?
A huge thank you to every one that donated items and gift vouchers:
- Mullins
- Si Salon
- Victoria’s little bra shop
- The lovely shop
- The lemon tree
- The grape variety
- Mayflowers spa
- Westdaw Menswear
- Flowers by Alain
- Roosters
- Fig tree
- Dapper & Suave
Congratulations to our hamper winner!
Friends of Dorking.
At 06:30pm, Simon, with Friends of Dorking, arrived at Ralph James.
As sponsors of the Dorker’s Halloween Hunt, we hosted the organisers and the hunt winners for the handing out of prizes and certificates.
The Friends of Dorking are a small voluntary group of local businesses, retailers and community members who work with other local business and community groups. They organised the October Dorker’s Halloween Hunt.
Dorkers, the Friends of Dorking mascot, has the key role of making people happy. He was named Dorkers by the children of Dorking in a competition. He loves to be seen around the streets of Dorking as often as he can.
Congratulations everyone!
Our sincerest thanks, also, to Ralph James for very kindly sponsoring this year’s event and also hosting the presentation last Thursday. We can hopefully get you on board again for next year’s Halloween Hunt.
Simon, Friends of Dorking
Festive fun.
Despite the event only being a couple of hours, we managed to sell over 40 cups of mulled wine, plus over 45 guesses and a handful – excuse the pun – of lucky dips.
Want to see more?
In true Ralph James style, you can watch a video reel with the evening’s highlights over on our Instagram and Facebook.
Be prepared to feel festive.
If you’d like to know more about the Ralph James community, events and happenings, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Marketing Manager, Ashly, by dropping a line to ashly@ralphjames.co.uk – or if you’d like to chat to the Dorking team, why not call us on 01306 284 555 or pop in for a coffee at 44 West Street.
